Facebook servers and cold storage in action

Walking around a hyperscale data center with thousands of servers in each aisle, you'd expect a lot of noise. But the Facebook Forest City data center is relatively quiet, warm and humid.

You won't find raised floors and mechanical air conditioners cooling the servers either. Instead, the building design pulls in outside air, filters it and floods the front of the racks. Facebook's servers expel air into a contained hot aisle, which reaches 120 degrees Fahrenheit and is also the loudest area on the data center floor. By heating the air, the servers naturally dehumidify it, so the company designed its buildings to recapture and recycle hot aisle air into the mix.